Maybe it's just me but I'm having a hard time taking this story seriously. The list of affronts visited on the family (strip searches, cops pissing on property, foster worse than the parents, humiliation of the parents by the state) makes it a story sound almost too good to be true if you are looking to rile up your readership.<p>No identifying information is another big red flag, the parents of the free range kids hassled for letting their kids walk a mile to the park were all over media but this even more horrible (if true) story of kids being taken away for playing in the back yard is totally anonymous? Come on.<p>The bar to get me to hate on bureaucratic drones is pretty low, over shoot it too much and you take the fun away.
I say this literally every time a story like this pops up but, as ever, I'll say it again: Have the (adults) in charge completely lost their minds? Is the government so out of touch with reality that this makes sense to them? I loved going on walks or riding my bike to the shops or sleeping in/playing at home when i was 10 or 11, and yet now this seems all but impossible to consider? How the hell did this happen?
> The parents decided to have them placed with a slightly problematic in-state relative instead.<p>Leaving out any issues of rights, that's the biggest issue here: that children get moved from a safe situation into a more dangerous one, in the name of keeping them safe.<p>Take this recent case in Australia [1]. A father cared enough about his child to voluntarily put him in the state's care, whilst he sorted himself out. The child never came home, as the state placed the child in an unsafe home, and he drowned.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/parents-demand-answers-after-toddler-drowned-in-foster-carers-pool-20150522-gh77bt.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/parents-demand-answers-after-toddl...</a>
The article is likely a fake, a grown up version of the children camp horror story, and it gets retold for the same reason. In a quality news article you have to have answers to three questions: who, where, when. These three are necessary to verify claims independently, and their absence is highly suspect. There are exceptions to the rule - sometimes a journalist has to protect the people involved, such as in the case of a vulnerable crime victim or a political whistleblower (Watergate, Snowden), but then we're basically relying on the reputation on the journalist or the newspaper in question - a track record of getting scandalous stories right.<p>In this case there is no reason to hide the names, dates, or location (as the neighbors already know and the court records are open), and there is no way to ascertain the credibility of the news source.<p>Absence of both a credible source and a credible reporter to vouch for the anonymous source breaks the chain of credibility - the article might as well be made up, and it usually is.<p>Another suspicious factor is that the claims are so outlandish - the more outrageous the claim, the more likely its a fake. When a reader is frightened or outraged he is more likely to disregard caution and share the story, and so it goes viral. For that reason outlandish stories are more likely to get shared regardless of merit, as opposed to less exceptional stories that get shared more inline with their truthfulness, and so statistically speaking an outlandish story is more likely to be a fake scare, whereas a mundane story is more likely to be true.<p>Yet another factor to consider is absence of an attempt to get the other side of the story - no mention of trying to contact CPS, or District Attorney to get their comments on the case.
Foster parent here (from another state than in the article).<p>I'm going to go a bit off topic, but I want to comment on this snippet:<p>> [The kids had been eating] [o]nly cereal, for the past few days. That's not going to kill anyone, obviously. But if you're arresting parents for not supervising their kids for 90 minutes, it's more than a little hypocritical.<p>There's probably a good reason for that: the foster parents couldn't get the kids to eat anything else! Perhaps they were really nervous and uncomfortable? When I'm nervous, it's hard to eat other foods like vegetables and meats. Sometimes cereal is all I can stomach. I could only imagine how those poor, confused kids felt.<p>We were trained to feed the kids what they would eat. That means if they want a hot dog every night, you give them a freaking hot dog every night. Sometimes keeping the kid within whatever is left of their comfort zone is more important than good nutrition. As time goes on, you start mixing things up and start giving them better food. But out the gate, the most important thing is to help the kids feel comfortable.<p>People like the author of this article seem to love to paint foster parents in a bad light. They have this weird mentality I don't understand. They don't care about the facts, they're just looking for anything to make everyone from the state to look like incompetent scum. Look even at this quote:<p>> The kids are attending "play" therapy.<p>Maybe it's because the whole article is horribly negative and lacking any kind of reference (even all the names are made up to "protect the innocent" or whatever), but I feel like that is sarcasm. And the sarcasm in that sentence demonstrates how much the author doesn't know. "Play" therapy is a real thing, and it really helps the kids. It's not some crazy witchcraft the state thought up. The kids might've been "normal" before this all happened, but it's important to get kids in this situation (even the ones that weren't abused/neglected/etc, like the children in the article) to make sure they're getting the help that they need to cope with the CURRENT situation. We always try to get our foster kids in play therapy, even if they act completely "normal" and understanding of everything. The thing I don't want is to think the kid is okay and then find out they've been holding it all back.
Is there any corroboration of the story, or a response by CPS and/or the court? It's very possible I missed it, but neither the article nor the comments give a solid source other than the parents.<p>Because the skeptic in me says that while CPS might be pretty bad, it's also not inconceivable that the aggrieved parents might leave out key details of the story. So I'd like to hear what CPS (or really, any other source) has to say before I get too up-in-arms here.
Here's a similar case where a writer left her son in her car for a few minutes in a parking lot at a store:<p><a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/the_day_i_left_my_son_in_the_car/" rel="nofollow">http://www.salon.com/2014/06/03/the_day_i_left_my_son_in_the...</a>
I think that no matter how close to the truth this particular story is, there are similar ones circulating on the web and the circumstance has also made it to John Oliver's show - which I believe does a lot with regard to credibility.<p>We need to contrast this to stories like this <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9677863" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9677863</a> [How my father gave me a terrifying lesson at 10] which received overwhelmingly positive feedback on here.<p>We are living in a society that has been induced with fear so much that parents give away the freedom even of their kids. I wonder what kind of people these kids will grow to become. And I wonder how many parents ask themselves this question.
I hate to be that person but this isn't the actions of a country that prides itself as being free. Sadly, it's not an isolated case either. I've read numerous similar accounts of such things occurring. Along with the "lemonade stand permit", it's bewildering.<p>I realise that in the grand scheme, these are fairly unique but you simply don't hear about such things happening in Europe, in Australia or in the middle and far East. Perhaps it's a case of similar cases happening in other nations but just not reported on so much.<p>Why do we keep reading stories like this and the deluge of police brutality and other wacky stories coming out of the USA?
I looked up the relevant part of the legal code:<p>3)(a) "Neglect of a child" means:<p>1. A caregiver's failure or omission to provide a child with the care, supervision, and services necessary to maintain the child's physical and mental health, including, but not limited to, food, nutrition, clothing, shelter, supervision, medicine, and medical services that a prudent person would consider essential for the well-being of the child; or<p>2. A caregiver's failure to make a reasonable effort to protect a child from abuse, neglect, or exploitation by another person.<p>Neglect of a child may be based on repeated conduct or on a single incident or omission that results in, or could reasonably be expected to result in, serious physical or mental injury, or a substantial risk of death, to a child.<p>If I'm reading it correctly, an incident like this could have been legal grounds to charge the parents with neglect if and only if it was repeated conduct - e.g., they had repeatedly locked the kid out of the house. If not, any judge would through this case out immediately.<p>Note: I'm not a lawyer and may be entirely wrong.
In other news today: <a href="http://www.kltv.com/story/29290704/police-video-shows-officer-questioning-about-lemonade-stand-permit" rel="nofollow">http://www.kltv.com/story/29290704/police-video-shows-office...</a>
While the story is of course fucked up the comments about CPS being some kind brownshirt-nanny corps are perhaps a bit overblown? There are actually people who do more harm than good to their kids and that's the reason I suppose these procedures exist.<p>I would say it is the 'common standard' of what constitues a negligence that is the twisted thing here. Normal kids don't need a 24 hour supervisor once they go to school.
From the guidelines:<p><i>”On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one’s intellectual curiosity.<p>Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they’re evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. (...)”</i><p>Flagged.
This literally makes no sense to me. At 11, I used to run, ride my bike for miles by my self. Hell, if I go to my parents neighborhood now. There are kids playing outside all the time. By this logic, I can call the cops, and get the entire neighborhood arrested. Can't think of a normal adult that would support this.
CPS are disgusting scum. This kind of story is reported every week. The government is criminalizing parenthood. Kids can't play in their backyard, they can't walk to the playground, they can't ride their bikes. Do people remember their childhood? When did Americans become so socially retarded?
I am foreigner, so could someone explain to me - why this is happening? From my discussion similar incidents with other parents it seems like everybody not sure why such attitude exists today. I mean, it should be same adults who have no clue why it is done, pass and enforce these laws?
Basically this is the evolution towards Minority Report. We are destroying the concept of innocent until proven guilty and are convicting people for what might happen instead of what did happen.